A feeling that he’d been driven out of London was another aspect of his identification with Ovid. In the Penguin edition of the Tristia, again in Peter Green’s translation, I found the lines Harriet had mentioned about Ovid’s banishment: ‘It was two offences undid me, a poem and an error’ (II. 207), ‘my exile’s cause/was not a crime, but an error’ (IV. 10. 90–91). Rob had chosen to leave the capital, rather than being forced, but I remembered him moaning about the privations of Hadingfield: there were no good restaurants, the neighbours were nosy, he had constant colds and headaches, the only pubs were the kind where everyone stops talking when you walk in. From the way he went on, you’d think he was living in the Outer Hebrides, not an hour’s train ride from London. The tone was jokey, but the language wasn’t. He’d been exiled, he said, forced out, expelled, outlawed, hounded from office, to eke out his days, forgotten, in the sticks.
On the face of it, he’d written or done nothing to offend the establishment. But there’d been kerfuffles. The ‘Bangkok paedophile’ poem; his ‘snooty’ dismissal of the Poet Laureateship as a post that ‘wrenched an inherently private art into a public display of royal arse-licking’; his ‘vicious attack’ on creative writing programmes as ‘scams invented by the avaricious, run by the talentless and paid for by the gullible’. There’d also been some unpleasantness when he chaired the judging panel for a big poetry prize and fell out with the other judges, one of whom blabbed to the press about Rob’s ‘churlishness’ and ‘negativity’ – unimpressed by the standard of the entries, he’d been against awarding the prize at all. The spat made the news pages, where it was treated as a comic example of literary bickering, with Rob (‘the Bow-Tie Poet’) accused of being ‘crusty’ and ‘out of touch’. The fuss soon died down. But perhaps he’d brooded about it more than I realised, to the point of feeling humiliated and ostracised. If Jill, as I suspected, had been campaigning to move somewhere quieter, it might have been enough to tip the balance.
More likely, though, it was a different ‘error’ that drove Rob away. A weakness of the flesh, a coup de foudre, the kind of mistake he’d made with Corinne and made again many years later – love as a disaster. The poems said as much, if you took them as a log of Rob’s life. Then again: could you?
21
‘This changes everything,’ I emailed Louis and Lexy, the day after seeing Harriet.
‘Absolutely,’ Louis said.
Lexy was more circumspect: ‘Have you told Jill?’
‘Not yet,’ I replied. ‘I was hoping you might.’
‘No way. You’re Rob’s executor. Give me a call when you have.’
It took me a while to get round to it – not just because I failed to summon the courage, but because of the referendum result. No one on the paper had seen it coming and, in the aftermath, every department was under pressure to contribute; even Cookery and Gardening carried features about what to expect, post-Brexit. On the books pages we ran short comment pieces by over a dozen novelists, dramatists and poets, none of whom had voted Brexit and none of whom could explain why anyone would. Had Rob been alive, he’d have been among them. I was pleased he wasn’t. So you’re pleased I’m dead, how friendly is that? he said, resuming our conversation. I know how much Brexit would have upset you, that’s all, I said. You were always big on Europe – those Martello poems, for instance, and now the Ovid. All the more reason to get my work out there, he said – what’s keeping you? I need to square it with Jill, I said. My will says nothing about squaring it with my wife, he said. Widow, I said, let’s drop this pretence that you’re alive. Don’t get smart with me, he said, just do your job. Will you promise to stop stalking me when I do? I said. Stalking? he said. Oh, all right, I said. Will you promise to stop talking? If that’s what you want, he said. It is, I said. Deal, he said.
I’d sent out several more letters about the archive. But only three universities had bothered to reply. One said its library lacked the space to house manuscripts, another that its focus had shifted from paper to digital holdings, a third that its annual acquisitions budget had been spent. The pretext of going through the papers again with a potential buyer would have allowed me to ‘happen on’ the folder I’d found. But none had come forward. Now I’d have to bite the bullet and tell Jill the truth.
And I did. More or less. The definitive version of his poems had been in his desk all along, I told her, but somehow I had missed it. I didn’t own up to forcing the drawer.
‘I found them the day Aaron visited,’ I said. ‘But I couldn’t tell you in front of him.’
We were sitting at her kitchen table again, battle lines redrawn, her eyes a chilly lido blue.
‘Robbie told me the drawer wouldn’t open,’ she said.
‘I thought so too, but I tried it and it did.’
‘Why didn’t you leave the poems with me?’
‘I needed time to check things out. I wanted to be sure.’
‘Sure of what?’ she said.
‘Sure of the reason these poems are unlike all his others.’
‘And?’
‘They don’t sound like Rob because they’re not his. They’re versions of Ovid’s Amores. From the Latin.’
Her laugh was scornful.
‘Robbie didn’t know any Latin. Not really. Just a few words, from school.’
‘He didn’t need to. There’s a copy of Ovid on his desk, in an English translation. I expect he worked from that.’ I slid the folder across the desk. ‘Take a look. The epigraphs at the top are from the original Ovid poems. The numbers tell you which one.’
She skimmed through, stopping a few pages in.
‘How can this one be a translation of Ovid? It talks about emails.’
I peered across. She was looking at 1.11.
‘The original was about a go-between carrying letters,’ I said. ‘Rob has updated it. He does that again with the poem you thought was based on your ex-husband. Here, see: 3.14. Rob takes two lines from Ovid – ‘Each time you confess a liaison it kills me by inches, my reason/Blanks out’ – then locates it in a contemporary setting.’
‘But why bother?’
‘It’s what a lot of writers do – take an ancient text and give it new life.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Matt. You know what I’m getting at. Why bother unless he felt a personal connection?’
‘In some cases, yes, he’s probably using Ovid as a frame to describe his own experiences – the love poems to you, for instance. But in others, it’s a matter of imagination. And of paying homage to a writer he admired.’
She turned over another sheet or two, solemn, baffled, undecided whether to feel relief or suspicion, pride in her husband or the victim of a scam.
‘I need to look at them all carefully,’ she said. ‘Who else has read them?’
‘Only Louis and Lexy. But they agree with me.’
‘Agree what?’
‘That we do now have a complete set of poems intended for publication.’
‘Originally by Ovid.’
‘Yes.’
‘But describing things that happened to Robbie.’
‘To some degree, yes.’
‘To some degree?’ Marie said. ‘How does that help? If it were me, I’d be tormented wondering to what degree.’
‘It is a help. With any she doesn’t like she can tell herself they happened to Ovid, not Rob.’
‘She’s not stupid, Matt. What about her friends? The ones who thought she and Rob were happily married? They’ll all assume the worst. Dragging Ovid in won’t stop her feeling exposed.’
‘She might feel it, but if it came to court she’d never persuade a judge.’
‘What makes you think Lexy will publish them? You can’t force her.’
‘She’s his editor.’
‘She’s also friendly with Jill.’
I met Lexy a few days later. She chose the South Bank again, the foyer of the National Theatre this time – she’d tickets for a play at the Lyttleton. Louis was due to
join us, but texted to say he’d be late.
‘I took the liberty,’ she said, pouring from a bottle. ‘It’s Italian, needless to say.’
‘To Ovid,’ I said.
‘To Ovid. I feel pretty stupid for not having spotted it,’ she said.
‘Me too.’
‘The numbers should have told us. Then again, the numbers were missing on the first batch you found. And the epigraphs weren’t obvious. And most of them were missing too, till you found the complete version.’
‘It would have saved a lot of trouble if I’d found it first.’
‘He was obviously covering his tracks,’ she said.
‘He led us a dance all right. But all’s well that –’
‘Maybe. Jill called me after you’d been round to see her.’
‘And?’
‘She still has issues.’
‘For fuck’s sake. Now we’ve the Ovid connection, I don’t see the problem.’
‘As far as she’s concerned it’s Rob’s book. And she’s uncomfortable with that.’
‘If she wants a fight, fine, we’re up for that.’
‘You might be.’
‘You can’t just cave in, Lexy.’
‘Did I say I was caving in?’
‘Then how – ?’
‘Here’s Louis,’ she said.
It was strange to see him in the flesh; all our recent dealings had been by phone and email. I’d forgotten how tall he is and how elegant a dresser: linen suit, silk tie (with elephants on it), Italian shoes.
‘Sorry I’m late. They should get on and build that Garden Bridge – I’d have got here much quicker.’
He shook my hand, kissed Lexy, shrugged off his jacket, let his glass be filled and led a new round of toasts. To Ovid. To Rob. To love.
‘To freedom,’ he added, as if he’d just got out of jail – as if we all had. ‘Can we fix a pub date?’
‘It’s not that easy,’ Lexy said. ‘I was just telling Matt. As far as Jill’s concerned, the Ovid business is a distraction. Rob’s would be the name on the cover.’
‘Absolutely,’ Louis said. ‘That’s what we want. And with a better title. Ovid’s Amores Revisited is a dog’s dinner.’
‘You’re missing the point,’ I said. ‘According to Lexy, Jill’s still against us publishing. We’re going to have to fight her in court.’
‘Not exactly,’ Lexy said. ‘If you’d just let me finish what I was saying. I think there’s a way round it.’
‘We’re all ears,’ Louis said, topping up our glasses and sitting back. But staying silent was impossible. It became a three-way dialogue.
‘Here’s one possibility,’ Lexy said. ‘We keep all the poems about an individual woman, i.e. the poems which could be read as being about Jill, even if they aren’t. And drop some of the others.’
‘Thereby destroying the structure of the book.’
‘Rob doesn’t follow Ovid’s structure. We don’t know if he did it deliberately, but in his version Books 1, 2 and 3 are all mixed up.’
‘Everything with Rob was deliberate.’
‘He also leaves some poems out – either because he didn’t have time or couldn’t get them to work – which gives us licence to do the same. If he were alive, that’s what I’d have advised, as his editor. There’ll be more of a narrative in the reduced version. And it’s one many people will recognise. The poet has various relationships, then falls in love and writes in celebration of a particular “you”. The shape’s much clearer. And it’s the one Rob seemed to be groping towards. Less is more.’
‘So you’re cutting the affairs and making him monogamous.’
‘Whether the “you” is his wife is open to interpretation.’
‘It’s still a fudge.’
‘The point is to keep the good poems and drop the bad. Those where he brags about how many women he slept with are terrible.’
‘Why is it OK for Tracey Emin to name her lovers on her tent, but not for Rob to do it pseudonymously in poems?’
‘Because Tracey’s subverting gender stereotypes, whereas Rob’s perpetuating them. She’s surprising, he’s predictable.’
‘It’s a matter of ideology, then?’
‘Of aesthetics. They’re just not very good poems.’
‘So you present him as sweetly uxorious.’
‘Even edited, he’s pretty unattractive. Less of a lecher, maybe, but still a liar. I’m not saying Jill will be happy. But there’ll be less for her to object to. No abortion. No hotel rooms. No porn-watching. And no boasting about sleeping with her friends.’
‘What about the poem where he gives his mother morphine?’
‘It doesn’t belong. There’s no basis for it in Ovid. And it’s out of key with the rest.’
‘And the one about his sister.’
‘That too.’
‘And the one where he talks about being impotent?’
‘Either it’s horribly true or horribly untrue – at any rate, Jill’s very against that poem.’
‘How many does that leave?’
‘More than enough for a collection.’
‘And the rest?’
‘That’s up to you two. If it were me, I’d deposit them in the archive. Under embargo.’
‘Till Jill dies?’
‘Or for a specified number of years. You won’t be destroying anything, just putting it on hold. If Rob’s still being read when the release date arrives, some PhD student will have a field day.’
‘It’s not what Rob stipulated in his will,’ I said.
‘Authors don’t get all they wish for when alive. Why should they when they’re dead?’
Neither of us had an answer to that. And Lexy had a play to get to – the three-minute bell had just gone.
‘We’ll have to think about it,’ I said, standing up.
‘Of course.’
‘We’ve not even discussed terms,’ Louis said, kissing her.
‘That’s the easy bit. Call me.’
We left her looking in her handbag for her ticket, and walked west, towards Waterloo Station. A warm wind blew off the Thames.
‘Nice tie,’ I said. ‘Rob had a scarf that was similar.’
‘Yes, it was me who put him on to the shop.’
‘Really? He told me … oh, never mind.’
Outside the station, we picked up two Standards. The news was all Brexit news.
‘Don’t look so glum,’ Louis said. ‘It’s the obvious solution.’
‘What, voting Leave?’
‘The book. As edited by Lexy. She gets a collection she can be proud of, Jill’s appeased, and we do our bit by Rob. Yes, we’d prefer to have all the poems out there. But there’ll still be more than enough to get people talking. And if the response is good, we’ll persuade Lexy to do an expanded version in a year or two. Happy?’
‘Put like that,’ I said, ‘not unhappy.’
22
How long can you work for a newspaper when you’re not all that interested in news? For a time, perhaps. But even books are part of a news agenda: there are prizes, festivals, trade fairs, controversies, along with the pressure to review the big titles before your rivals do. Ought you to work for a newspaper when none of this really excites you? I’d managed eight years. More than long enough.
When Leonie took me for a coffee, I guessed what was coming. We’d had a squabble the previous week – according to her, I’d ‘over-subbed’ the lead review – but I knew from her expression, more pitying than severe, this wasn’t about that. Circulation was still in freefall, she said, sitting me down in a corner of the basement café. Jobs had to go and no department, however small, was immune. She’d fought off management for a year, two years if I wanted to know, but now their patience, or their money, had run out. Go today and I’d get an extra three months’ salary, on top of the eight for each year worked; spend a week thinking it over, and the offer of extra might disappear. Redundancy was no judgement on me, she said. Staff jobs were becoming a thing
of the past. Soon everyone in the media would be freelance and many of them writing for nothing. With the deal she’d got me, I needn’t worry about earning for the next year. Didn’t I crave more time for my own writing? Well then, here was the opportunity.
I cleared my desk that afternoon, after a ten-minute exit interview with HR. Actually, I had no desk, just a work-station. The only clearing was of a shelf in the book cupboard, stacked with titles I’d not got round to reading. Plenty of time for that now.
Marie, when she calmed down, was philosophical. She’d already been thinking of returning to work full-time. The boys were both at school, and if Mabel continued going to the childminder from Wednesday to Friday I’d be free from nine till three for more than half the week. No more excuses about not getting on with my novel, she said. Think of it as a lucky break. Unlooked-for freedom. And a chance to do more with my kids.
It has been ten months and so far it’s working out. Now I’m the one in charge of meals, I’ve become a better cook; like it or not (and they don’t, much), the kids get a varied diet from me, not just the pizza and pasta I used to give them. I’m a better dad, too, more adept at coping with demands for another game, an extra biscuit, a later bedtime. And with the time I spend at the school gates or swimming lessons or wheeling Mabel through the park, I’ve got to know other parents, some of them dads like me. There are more and more of us, it seems, self-employed, job-sharing, working shifts, on zero hours contracts and a few (the unlucky ones) permanently between jobs. I’ve had some good conversations in the sandpit. And become firm friends with a graphic designer called Marcus, whose daughter is the same age as Mabel. There’s also Greg, an architect with three-year-old twins, who has offered to look at our basement (Marie’s pushing for an extension). We don’t call ourselves househusbands; between nappies and school runs, we’re still pursuing careers. But we’ve become the prime carers, while our partners go to work and out-earn us. My dad would have thought it an affront to his masculinity; I, too, found it difficult at first. Now it feels as though it’s always been this way. Do I miss the office? My colleagues? The banter? Hardly at all.
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